The quick bankruptcy of the automakers saved more than a million jobs

As the Federal government recovered nearly half of its emergency investment in General Motors yesterday, the Center for Automotive Research reported that the Obama administration's actions saved more than one million jobs in 2009 and just over 300,000 jobs in 2010.

Government assistance to General Motors and Chrysler enabled orderly bankruptcy proceedings and led to the saving of more than 1.14 million jobs in 2009 alone, according to a recently released Research Memorandum published by the Center for Automotive Research, (CAR), an Ann Arbor-based nonprofit research organization. The memorandum examines the magnitude of the economic impact of the U.S. policy to provide aid to the auto industry in 2008 and 2009 and weighs the public and private benefits against the public cost.

In addition, the administration's actions helped to avoid about $29 billion in other revenue losses that would have occured, lowering the net cost to the treasury.

The two unattractive choices at the time were quick government-financed and negotiated bankruptcies for GM and Chrystler or longer, drawn-out private bankruptcies. The CAR analysis compares these scenarios.

President Bush (the "great decider") punted the choice to the Obama administration. The Bush administration provided a temporary bail-out but did not make any of the wrenching choices regarding longer term support or restructuring.

Despite the assistance from the government, the restructuring was painful. Jobs and dealerships were lost. GM and Chrystler stockholders were wiped out. The analysis shows, however, that the outcome could have been more than a million jobs and nearly $100 billion dollars worse.

The Obama administration's tough decision was the right one, helping to avoid enormous additional job and income losses, while setting the stage for the automakers' eventual recovery.

What will be the Party of No's objection now?

A substantial majority of Americans--70 percent according to a May Gallup poll--reject continued discrimination against openly gay and lesbian service members. The President, his Republican Secretary of Defense, and Democrats in Congress similarly reject this discrimination.

And now the long-awaited survey of active military members reveals that a similar substantial majority of servicepeople don't see harms from ending discrimination.

From the Washington Post,

A Pentagon study group has concluded that the military can lift the ban on gays serving openly in uniform with only minimal and isolated incidents of risk to the current war efforts, according to two people familiar with a draft of the report, which is due to President Obama on Dec. 1.

More than 70 percent of respondents to a survey sent to active-duty and reserve troops over the summer said the effect of repealing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy would be positive, mixed or nonexistent, said two sources familiar with the document. The survey results led the report's authors to conclude that objections to openly gay colleagues would drop once troops were able to live and serve alongside them.

Just before the election, the Republican minority in the Senate blocked legislation that would have repealed the military's policy of discharging openly gay and lesbian service-members.

Don't look for this new evidence to change many Republican minds or to end Republican obstructionism.

A token of their extreme

Not yet convinced that this year's crop of Republican candidates are reactionary extremists? A New York Times editorial observes

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has to be smiling. With one exception, none of the Republicans running for the Senate — including the 20 or so with a serious chance of winning — accept the scientific consensus that humans are largely responsible for global warming.

The candidates are not simply rejecting solutions, like putting a price on carbon, though these, too, are demonized. They are re-running the strategy of denial perfected by Mr. Cheney a decade ago, repudiating years of peer-reviewed findings about global warming and creating an alternative reality in which climate change is a hoax or conspiracy.

Regretably, this list includes our own Sen. Richard Burr., who would be in line to chair the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee if North Carolina is short-sighted enough to re-elect him.

I would encourage Sen. Burr and the other deniers to read the reports by the National Academy of Sciences

Most scientists agree that the warming in recent decades has been caused primarily by human activities that have increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (see Figure 1). Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, have increased significantly since the Industrial Revolution, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels for energy, industrial processes, and transportation. Carbon dioxide levels are at their highest in at least 650,000 years and continue to rise.

There is no doubt that climate will continue to change throughout the 21st century and beyond, but there are still important questions regarding how large and how fast these changes will be, and what effects they will have in different regions. In some parts of the world, global warming could bring positive effects such as longer growing seasons and milder winters. Unfortunately, it is likely to bring harmful effects to a much higher percentage of the world’s people. For example, people in coastal communities will likely experience increased flooding due to rising sea levels.

The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to begin taking steps to prepare for climate change and to slow it. Human actions over the next few decades will have a major influence on the magnitude and rate of future warming. Large, disruptive changes are much more likely if greenhouse gases are allowed to continue building up in the atmosphere at their present rate. However, reducing greenhouse gas emissions will require strong national and international commitments, technological innovation, and human willpower.

Instead, look for denial and investigations to discredit scientists if the Republicans gain control.

Happy 30th -- PVHS Class of '80

I'm headed tomorrow to my 30th high school reunion in the garden city of Sterling, VA. I expect to see more than a touch of grey.



So long as I feel better than Jerry on Sunday morning, I should be okay.

Democrats as equal-opportunity verbal offenders

Republicans aren't the only ones who make disparaging comments when they think the public isn't listening. California Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown's were recorded in the following exchange

...the attorney general and his aides discussed resisting pressure to cut public-safety pensions or face losing police endorsements to Whitman.

"Do we want to put an ad out? ... That I have been warned if I crack down on pensions, I will be ... that they'll go to Whitman, and that's where they'll go, because they know Whitman will give 'em, will cut them a deal, but I won't," Brown said.

Someone else said: "What about saying she's a whore?"

"Well, I'm going to use that," Brown replied. "It proves you've cut a secret deal to protect the pensions."

There are some modest distinctions here. AG Brown did not make the comment, though it sure looks like he agreed with it. Also, his campaign issued an apology, albeit for the wormy reason that it might have caused offense rather than it was flat-out wrong. The bottom line, however, is the comment was offensive.

AG Brown and his campaign worker each owe Meg Whitman a more direct and forceful apology.

'Queers' and 'fruitloops'

How do Republican legislators in North Carolina talk among themselves?

State Rep. Larry Brown sent his fellow House Republicans an e-mail last week where he referred to gays as "queers" and "fruitloops."

Brown was responding to an e-mail House Minority Leader Paul Stam of Apex sent to members of his caucus about House Speaker Joe Hackney getting an award from the Equality NC Foundation, a gay-rights group.

Brown sent his reply to nearly 60 e-mail addresses.

"I hope all the queers are thrilled to see him," said the message dated Sept. 27. "I am sure there will be a couple legislative fruitloops there in the audience."

Rep. Brown owes his constituents an apology for his bigoted comments.

House Minority Leader Paul Stam, however, doesn't see it that way. Under the Dome quotes him as saying, "It was not sent to a public group ... There's a lot of language that is used by public officials in public and private that should not be used."

Rather than enabling his bigoted colleague, Rep. Stam should be condemning Rep. Brown's remarks. An e-mail list of "nearly 60" people is hardly private. And the remarks are no less deplorable for being expressed to a few people.

A different kind of structural deficit

With Republicans and the Tea Party clamoring to cut discretionary government spending, it's important to remember that the country has many grossly underfunded needs, the transportation infrastructure being only one.

The United States is saddled with a rapidly decaying and woefully underfunded transportation system that will undermine its status in the global economy unless Congress and the public embrace innovative reforms, a bipartisan panel of experts concludes in a report released Monday.

...Co-chaired by two former secretaries of transportation - Norman Y. Mineta and Samuel Skinner - the group estimated that an additional $134 billion to $262 billion must be spent per year through 2035 to rebuild and improve roads, rail systems and air transportation.

Investing more money is a critical part of the solution, but it's only one part. The bipartisan panel recommends the following:

1. Stop the bleeding: Congress must address the immediate crisis in transportation funding.
   
2. Beyond the gas tax: Innovative thinking is needed to develop the next generation of user fees. Specifically, future funding mechanisms should not depend primarily on fossil-fuel consumption—which the government is actively seeking to discourage through a number of other policies—to keep up with transportation investment needs.
   
3. Jobs for the future, not just today: Future stimulus spending should be directed to those transportation projects that will deliver the greatest returns in terms of future U.S. competitiveness, economic growth, and jobs. Building a foundation for sustained prosperity and long-term job creation is more important than boosting short-term employment in road construction.
   
4. Pass the power, please: Clarify decision-making power and enhance the effectiveness of states, localities, and metropolitan planning organizations.
   
5. Adopt a capital budget: The federal government should adopt accounting methods that (A) recognize expenditures on transportation infrastructure as investments (rather than consumption) and (B) take into account future returns on those investments.
   
6. Connect the dots: Adopt an integrated approach to transportation planning that includes freight and goods movement and stresses intermodal connectivity.
   
7. Getting Americans home in time for dinner: Find more effective ways of reducing urban congestion.
   
8. It’s all about leverage: Encourage public-private partnerships while also improving oversight of such partnerships.
   
9. Deliver transportation investments on time: Reform project planning, review, and permitting processes to speed actual implementation.
   
10. Build a foundation for informed policy: Better and more timely data are essential to measure progress toward defined goals and objectives and to improve the performance of the nation’s transportation systems.

A return to fiscal sanity requires that the country realistically assess and prioritize its needs and then come up with ways to fund those needs. Republicans' and Tea Partiers' denial of these problems doesn't mean that that they go away.

What's wrong with Emily Bazelon

Has Emily Bazelon gone completely off the deep end?

She has engaged in a crusade on behalf of the tormenters of Phoebe Prince (the student in Massachusetts who hung herself after being cyber-bullied). Bazelon took this to the point of arguing that Prince herself was a bully.

She is now arguing that judgement must be withheld in the case of Tyler Clementi, the freshman from Rutgers who jumped from the George Washington Bridge after being video-taped and you-tubed in a same-sex encounter by his despicable roommate, Dharun Ravi, and another dormmate, Molly Wei.

Bazelon muses

But can we stop for a moment before we blame Dharun and Molly Wei, the other student who allegedly participated in the taping, for Tyler's suicide?

Right, video-taping and you-tubing a sexual encounter could not have possibly contributed to Clementi's suicide.

Why blame the tormenters when it's easier to blame the parents as Bazelon did in this earlier post on the suicide of a Wesleyan freshman? Bazelon finds it hard to even name tormenters.

To be clear, I get Bazelon's argument, which is that suicide is complex. However, that does not lead to Bazelon's conclusion that we should

hesitate to think we have any but the shallowest understanding of what happened here.

Dharun and Wei committed a heinous act. It's impossible to imagine how this couldn't have contributed to Clementi's suicide.

Payment follies at the NC Employment Security Commission

The North Carolina Employment Security Commission (ESC) has made payment mistakes to unemployment insurance (UI) claimants totalling some $28 million and is now compounding its errors with confusing letters to those claimants.

The News & Observer reports

Thousands of long-term unemployed North Carolinians could soon owe the state money because the Employment Security Commission improperly made about $28 million in payments over the last two years.

Last week, the ESC began sending out letters to about 38,000 people who it has determined were either overpaid or underpaid through no fault of their own.

Recipients, all of whom received unemployment benefits for a year or longer, are getting anywhere from one to six letters depending on the number of times their benefits have been extended.

The final letter has the correct amount due, but the letters often aren't arriving in the right order. The letters also tell people they can apply for a waiver to have the overpayment forgiven. But the ESC can provide no details on how each wavier will be evaluated.

Despite sending out the letters, the ESC was unable on Monday to provide an estimate of how many people will owe the state money.

"We are hoping a majority of these [final letters] will say zero," said Larry Parker, an ESC spokesman.

The most basic function of the ESC is to administer the UI program, which means collecting the correct UI taxes and paying the correct benefits. The ESC has fallen down in this essential function.

Worse, instead coming up with a correction, the agency appears to have issued conflicting instructions to claimants. The ESC should have figured out a way to correct the problem before sending the first letter.

Instructions at the ESC web-site are far from helpful. Buried in small type on the agency's home page is a note

Some claimants may have received multiple monetary and adjustment letters in the mail. If you are one of these individuals and want to know more about what you have received click here.

Clicking leads to a message in pure bureaucratese

The primary goal of the Unemployment Insurance program is to pay benefits as timely and as accurately as possible. We have paid a record amount of claims over the past year and have discovered the possibility of some improperly paid claims. As a result, we have made corrections to our records. You may have received several monetary determinations and one or more letters relative to your payment history.

Some individuals received improper regular UI payments. Improper payments are being corrected with little impact on individuals in most cases. If you received improper regular UI payments, we have replaced those improper payments with proper EUC payments and with EB payments.

The letters contain instructions for you to follow. If you want to have further discussions about any letter that you have recently received, contact us by email at esc.ui.customerservice@ncesc.gov.

What could be clearer or more helpful? And you can bet that the e-mail responses from the ESC will be every bit as clear and helpful as the posted message and the original letters.

The state's unemployed have other things to worry about than wading through confusing and contradictory "monetary determinations" or pondering the propriety of regular UI, EUC, and EB payments.

To borrow from Jimmy Breslin, NC is fast becoming the state that couldn't shoot straight.

18 = most economists?

CNNMoney.com authoritatively reports this morning on the results from a survey it conducted

With income tax rates set to go up on Dec. 31, Congress is hotly debating what to do next. But most economists agree: Keep them where they are.

No ambiguity whatsoever--most economists agree!

With such an authoritative conclusion, this must be some survey. Surely, CNNMoney.com started with a wide roster of economists, perhaps the 17,000 or so members of the American Economic Association? Hmm, not exactly.

Okay, then they must have surveyed a large number of economists so that they can precisely infer the policy views of the profession. Only if you think that 31 economists constitutes a large sample.

Okay, the sample is small, but it's representative with overwhelming percentages favoring the tax cuts. Hardly. About two-thirds of the surveyed economists work for large banks, brokerages, or business associations. And of those surveyed, only 18 of 31 supported the tax cuts (and several of those did so with qualified support).

CNNMoney.com later explains that its survey is limited to "leading" economists, though its list of economists includes no Nobel laureates or John Bates Clark medal winners. There are at least a few of those who oppose the tax cuts. The story describes the views of another well-known (but not-leading-enough-to-be-included-in-the-survey) economist, Alan Greenspan, who opposes the tax cuts.

At the end of the story, we really don't know what most economists think about the tax cuts. A comfortable prediction, however, is that most would agree that CNNMoney.com has conducted a crap survey.

Cashing in on 9/11

Where most people see the anniversary of a tragedy, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin see a fanatastic money-making opportunity.

The Anchorage Daily News reports

Crowd magnets Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are teaming up again, this time on the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

"We can count on Glenn to make the night interesting and inspiring, and I can think of no better way to commemorate 9/11 than to gather with patriots who will 'never forget,' " Palin wrote of the conservative commentator on her Facebook page. "Hope to see you there!"

But unlike their free August rally at the National Mall, Saturday's event in Anchorage will come with a hefty price.

Tickets range from $73.75 to a high of $225. The priciest tickets cover seats up front and a "meet and greet" at the Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center, where the event is being held.

Yep, separating "patriots who will 'never forget'" from their hard-earned $73.75 to $225, that's the way Beck and Palin plan to "restore honor" to the country.

Shameless.

It's not easy being green -- part IV

The New York Times posts about an Economist article that predicts that more efficient light bulbs could increase the amount of electricity demanded.

...history suggests that better technology 'will serve merely to increase the demand for light.'

The logic is that people demand what the bulbs produce--light. More efficient bulbs reduce the price of that good, causing demand to rise. In this case, demand appears to be very responsive (elastic), leading not only to more light consumption but more energy consumption.

More relativism Guarino-style

Joe Guarino's crusade against the relativists, nihilists, and purveyors of porn in the Greensboro library continues. However, his latest post only helps to expose more relativism on his part.

One of the great services that Joe performs for the citizens of Greensboro is to field questionnaires for city council candidates and to post the responses. I may disagree with Joe's slant on a lot of things, including some of the loaded questions on the questionnaire, but I have to salute him for giving voters a wealth of candidate information that wouldn't come out otherwise.

Why bring up the questionnaire? Well, in today's post, Joe expresses disappointment with a city council candidate who flip-flopped on a question about filtering (she responded that she supported computer filtering on the questionnaire and then didn't support Danny Thompson's ill-conceived motions regarding filtering).

It appears, however, that filtering wasn't exactly the be-all and end-all issue when Joe was making endorsemens. For example, in the District 2 race last year, he endorsed Dan Fischer whose response to the filtering question was “No. I want our children to be able to look for what they need to for research purposes. And there are plenty of people who use the library computers other than our children. If we had a section just for children then yes, I would want some kind of filters on the computers.”

He favored Fischer over Nettie Coads, whose response to the filtering question was "Yes, some should be filtered for exclusive use by young people."

In another race, Joe endorsed George Hartzman, whose very adamant response to the filtering question was, "First Amendment. It is up to parents to raise their children, not the state. Next thing you know somebody is burning books. Who gets to decide what’s filtered?" In that race, Joe passed over a candidate who gave a more positive response.

In another race, he initially endorsed Nancy Vaughan, whose response to the filtering question was "(No) I do not think that the libraries’ should filter computer content. Parents should take responsibility for their children’s computer use. " There were other candidates in the race unambiguously supported filtering.

In another race, Joe endorsed Mary Rakestraw, who did not complete a questionnaire, over Joel Landau whose short but sweet answer to the filtering question was "yes."

Joe continues to cast people who oppose filtering as "amoral" and castigates them as "relativists."

These parties have collectively decided that the false god of "library information" accessed through the internet is at a higher level of priority than the moral imperative of protecting minors. They have constructed an idol in their minds-- and that idol is unobstructed access to the internet.

But in several instances Joe's actions show that he had higher priorities than "the moral imperative of protecting minors." Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see a single case where Joe even mentioned filtering in his endorsement posts.

Joe had an opportunity to make moral choices related to filtering--it was either an all-important issue with him or it wasn't. Joe chose to elevate other concerns.

More slime in the Congressional swamp

"Draining the swamp" is a challenge when the swamp keeps refilling so quickly.

The Dallas News reports

Longtime Dallas congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson has awarded thousands of dollars in college scholarships to four relatives and a top aide's two children since 2005, using foundation funds set aside for black lawmakers' causes.

The recipients were ineligible under anti-nepotism rules of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, which provided the money. And all of the awards violated a foundation requirement that scholarship winners live or study in a caucus member's district.

Applying the Rangel defense, Rep. Johnson concedes that she violated the rules but did so unintentionally.

Now that she's been called out, she has promised to "rectify the financial situation." Now if only she could rectify the trust-in-your-Congressperson situation.

Time to lift the partial moratorium on off-shore drilling?

The Bipartisan Policy Center, a non-profit organization that was founded by four former Senate majority leaders, has just released a report that concludes that an appropriate regulatory regime has been established to take the place of the partial moratorium on deepwater oil drilling that was imposed after the BP disaster.

Specifically, the report concludes

The Department of Interior’s drilling moratorium has served the productive purpose of allowing time for both industry and government to prepare for a safer, more vigilant, and dependable future for U.S. offshore drilling. We believe DOI and the industry have used this time effectively to develop a new regulatory regime for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. At the same time, we readily agree with the oft-made point that drilling risks cannot be reduced to zero. But we are satisfied that compliance with the Interior Department’s NTLs 5 and 6 and other actions by the Department will achieve a significant and beneficial reduction of risk. If industry is diligent in incorporating these requirements and DOI is vigilant in oversight and enforcement, we believe this new regime will provide an adequate margin of safety to responsibly allow the resumption of deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Lifting the moratorium and replacing it with a new regulatory regime is not a magic bullet--oil drilling would not resume immediately and the drilling that eventually would occur wouldn't be riskless.

With respect to the first point, affected drilling would continue to be halted for some time while companies bring themselves into compliance with the regulations. Thus, the lifting of the moratorium doesn't translate into an immediate resumption of drilling.

Moreover, the new regulations will increase the costs of deepwater drilling and are likely to discourage some activity. So there would be a reduction in future drilling activity. The recommendations are far from "drill, baby, drill."

With respect to the second point, the report makes clear that many risks would remain and that more steps need to be taken to prepare for possible disasters. The report also makes clear that the changes in the regulatory regime are just starting and that more work and research will be needed.

The administration's drilling ban was an appropriate but controversial (and as the report indicates "blunt") response to the BP disaster. While some criticized the economic impacts, imagine the response if another rig disaster had occurred. Given the problems and uncertainties that existed at that time, the ban was the right policy call.

The administration, however, has backed itself into a corner with the ban. The legality of the ban is in question (the initial moratorium was struck down by a federal court, and it's not at all clear whether the follow-on moratorium will survive judicial review). Moreover, the moratorium is idling work at a time when the economy is barely limping along. The administration is surely looking for a way to move forward.

Hopefully, this report will give it the political cover to do so and provide a blueprint for a more responsible energy policy.

Guarino's relativism

For the three of you from Greensboro who may have missed the latest goings on, a fierce debate has been raging over whether the public library should install filters on its computers to reduce the amount of porn that's allegedly being downloaded.

The debate was ignited a few weeks ago when a poorly informed and ill-prepared councilman, Danny Thompson, waved a thick stack of papers implying that the majority contained examples of porn-viewing and other indecent behaviors in the libraries. The councilman then introduced a motion to install filters on the computers. A subsequent examination of the papers revealed that only a few indecent incidents had occurred and that such incidents had actually been substantially reduced over the last year. Nevertheless, the intrepid councilman pressed on.

The matter was revisited at a subsequent city council meeting, which voted the councilman's filtering motion down but asked library staff to provide more data.

The ever-excitable Joe Guarino immediately hyperventilated that council members had voted "to permit porn surfing" (nevermind that the available evidence showed that existing library policies were reducing these incidents, not increasing them). Brother Joe has since been on a tear accusing library staff and those who oppose the filters of "moral relativism."

Sayeth Joe,

We are worshipping the idol of unrestricted access to 'library information,' and placing that at a greater level of importance than protecting minors.

He goes on to accuse the library of "peddling" porn.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The library actually has a comprehensive approach that includes registering users, having them agree to usage terms, running throttling software, and having staff and security personnel present. In fact, the councilman's papers are evidence that restrictions are present and result in sanctions. Yet Joe equates these layered restrictions to peddling porn and suggests that the library staff be arrested for distributing child pornography.

Another local blogger, Tony Wilkins, now reports that "two anonymous sources" have told him that 21,000 visits to porn sites occurred last month in the local public library. Multiply by 12, and the number rises to 252,000 annually. Naturally, this has inflamed Joe who now says that "the burden is now on the relativists and the nihilists to demonstrate why filters are not appropriate."

Let's put aside the obvious question of why Tony's sources might have requested anonymity and go with his figures. It appears that Joe is the true relativist here. The most optimistic estimates for the filters indicate that they might screen 97 percent of objectionable material (albeit at the cost of lots of non-objectionable material also being blocked). Apply that likely inflated screening rate to 252,000 page visits, and Greensboro still ends up with over 7,500 porn views.

Joe and the councilman got their knickers in a bunch over a few dozen incidents, yet they would have us adopt a technology that would permit thousands of porn views each year. You tell me who's a relativist.

The only "correct" absolutist position is to immediately remove the execrable internet from the public library. While we're at it, the internet should also be removed from public schools and any public place where children might see someone else surfing--that includes all public wi-fi in non-adult venues (don't want those kids who wandering through Caribou Coffee to accidentally view "Debbie Does a Double Latte" or some such).

Until Joe is willing to remove all possibilities for inappropriate browsing in public places he is the moral relativist.

Our schools are great; yours stink

Gallup has released results from its annual poll of Americans' perceptions of their public schools. In the poll, respondents are asked to assign a grade--A, B, C, D or F--to the schools. Overall, the vast majority of respondents give the nation's public schools a grade of C (53 percent) or worse (26 percent). The results are consistent with a trend of increasingly negative views regarding schools.

An interesting result, however, appears when people are asked about their local schools--the ones that they fund and that their children attend.

Only 27 percent of respondents give their local schools grades of C or worse; 71 percent give them A's or B's. Views regarding local schools also trend in the opposite direction from views regarding schools as a whole. According to respondents, their local schools have become better over time.

The disparity is even more pronounced when parents are asked about the schools their children attend. For this group, 77 percent rate their children's schools as good or better, again with a generally increasing trend.

Results like these are fairly common. People despise Congress but love their own representatives. Other drivers are awful, but few people rate themselves that way.

Objective results indicate that the local view is closer to being accurate. Long-term trends in reading and math scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress have shown improvements for most age groups and especially for the youngest groups. Gains have been particularly pronounced for students from minority groups and students with less-educated parents.

Maybe it's time to cut the public schools a little bit of a break and stop villianizing educators. According to the people who seem to know best (local citizens and parents) and according to objective standards, "our" schools are both good and improving.

Sextortion

One more reason (as if one were needed) not to post or transmit something on-line that you wouldn't want everyone in the world to see now, or later.

The News-Observer reports

Federal prosecutors and child safety advocates say ... teens who text nude cell phone photos of themselves or show off their bodies on the Internet are being contacted by pornographers who threaten to expose their behavior to friends and family unless they pose for more explicit porn, creating a vicious cycle of exploitation.

One federal affidavit includes a special term for the crime: "sextortion."

The article goes on to warn

Privacy is nonexistent on the Internet, and once indiscretions appear online, they are virtually impossible to take back. A nude photo sent to a boyfriend's cell phone can easily be circulated through cell phone contacts and wind up on websites that post sexting photos. Once there, it's available for anyone who wants to trace it back to the person who made it.

Kids, you'll avoid a lot of heartache if you simply don't send this stuff.

Will the Greensboro library filter Quayle?

Ben Quayle, a Republican candidate for the 3rd district congressional seat in Arizona touts himself as, "a lifelong fiscal and social conservative," "a fighter for conservative values," and someone who will "protect life and traditional marriage."

Apparently, those "lifelong" conservative social values include writing for a smutty web-site under the pseudonym, Brock Landers (the name of a character from the movie Boogie Nights), and then lying about his activities when confronted.

The web-site links to some of Quayle's work, which might have a tough time getting through some of the library filters that local conservatives are proposing.

Quayle has already run into some truthiness issues in this campaign, sending out campaign mailers in which he posed with two young girls that weren't his (he is childless) to give the impression that he is a family man.

As the saying goes, watch what they do, not what they say.

Fiscal day of reckoning

An outcome that once seemed unimaginable for the U.S. is now receiving some serious discussion--a fiscal crisis and a sudden loss of investor confidence. The CBO has written a policy brief, "Federal Debt and the Risk of a Fiscal Crisis," that describes some dire possible consequences if the U.S. does not get its public budget under control.

The CBO writes about initial manageable consequences, such as rising interest payments that would add to the pressures on public budgets, debt servicing that would also crowd out of other productive activities, and a debt level that reduces our ability to respond to subsequent economic shocks or other emergencies.

However, the CBO goes on to warn

Beyond those gradual consequences, a growing level of federal debt would also increase the probability of a sudden fiscal crisis, during which investors would lose confidence in the government’s ability to manage its budget, and the government would thereby lose its ability to borrow at affordable rates. It is possible that interest rates would rise gradually as investors’ confidence declined, giving legislators advance warning of the worsening situation and sufficient time to make policy choices that could avert a crisis. But as other countries’ experiences show, it is also possible that investors would lose confidence abruptly and interest rates on government debt would rise sharply.

Without some changes in policy, the outlook isn't good. The CBO describes how under existing laws the public debt burden in the U.S. is forecast to remain high but manageable (debt will grow but so will the economy, leaving the effective debt burden to increase relatively slowly). However, many of those existing laws, such as caps on physician reimbursements under Medicare and the expiration of all of the Bush-era tax cuts, are likely to change. Under an alternative scenario, debt could grow much faster and possibly to unsustainable levels, triggering a crisis.

Sadly, neither Democrats nor Republicans are seriously addressing the issue. Democrats continue to add short-term budget boosts, like the current $26 billion aid package for states and local governments, that claim to be debt-neutral in the long run but which rely on budgetary gimmicks (for example, the aid package relies on a future change in food stamp benefits that Democrats will try to undo). Republicans don't even make this pretense, advocating unapologetically for a continuation of the unaffordable tax giveaways to the wealthy.

The policy changes needed to address the growing debt won't be easy or painless. However, relatively modest fixes can be implemented if we act sooner rather than later.